How planetMitch started their logo design journey

Company name

Overview

I'm a blogger who's making a big splash around the planet - my website has cracked the top 100k site in the world and I need a logo to match! Yes, in 2009, we had well over 500,000 unique visitors!

some time ago, I wanted a unique name (it is hard to have a simple, easy to remember and to speak username - my old common name stunk) to use in posting to websites etc... I ended up calling myself "planetMitch" and when I was creating this Canon 5D site, I found planet5D was available so I stuck with the 'planet' motif.

My site is expanding to add several new features and I also need a flexible logo to go with all aspects.

I started about 14 months ago and have grown exponentially based on the excitement over these new cameras. We started out covering nothing but the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, but now Canon has several of these 'hybrid' cameras and we're covering them all.

The blog is wordpress based and I'm using templates from woothemes.com

there is advertising on the blog - on the sidebar and in the right side of the header

Tell us a bit about who you are and the people you reach

the site is aimed at folks interested in Canon hybrid cameras - DSLRs that shoot not only stills but also HD Video - especially the Canon EOS 5D Mark II - which has become the superstar of the field.

the site consists of a blog (which gets the most traffic), a forum, a wiki, and I'm adding a new 'cinema' feature where we're going to show off movies made with these hybrids as well as maybe a whole section set up for reviews.

Requirements

I'm looking for a simple yet sexy logo - nothing overly fancy please

1) the site name 'planet5D' must be a significant part of the logo (with that identical case structure please) the 5D can be separate from the word planet but they are not separated by a space if they are together.

Note: the max width of the blog logo is about 420px

2) I would like a logo for each section of the site (at least I think I want this - what do you think?) - similar to what we have now on... ('planet5D blog' - 'planet5D wiki' etc - see current logos - http://blog.planet5d.com and http://wiki.planet5d.com for example).

3) I need to be able to customize the logo later in case I add additional sections

4) the site subtitle ("the best Canon hybrid information on the planet") may be included in the logo... I've used this for the last year, but I'm not sure it needs to be there in the future... what do you think? Flexible!

5) a camera isn't required in the logo (it still exists in the http://wiki.planet5d.com version), but since we're all about photography I wonder if it would be good?

6) would love to have a square version for use as an avatar and on T-shirts

I'm open to new colors - but the original logo probably has some branding with current visitors - most site backgrounds are dark grey or black